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strawberry wine - joel miller x ofc!liv stone/fem!reader
after - part thirty-six
SERIES MASTERLIST | MAIN MASTERLIST | READ ON AO3
what do you do now?
a/n: I'm not calling this a comeback cuz I don't trust myself and the last time I posted a part I said I was gonna have this thing done by the time s2 aired and that sure as shit didn't happen but we are CLOSER than I thought and I have plans for cherry wine (what's that? oh you have no idea yet hahA) so here have this thing love you all bye
word count: 6.2k
warnings: truly don't know why I bother BUT violence, gore, injuries, emotional breakdowns y'know it's a whole thing
✨@friskito-library for updates on new parts/works✨
Joel is screaming.
It’s so loud that Ellie can feel the thrum of it in the back of her mind, echoing off the walls of the basement. She can’t bring herself to look at you, to see the fucking fear in your face, the same look that’s been there from the moment you all set foot on the campus.
You never should have gone. You should have stayed in Jackson. She shouldn’t have fought with Joel, she should have kept her fucking mouth shut and told you and Joel that she wanted to stay. But she didn’t. And what a load of good it did everybody.
Ellie hands you the roll of duct tape you’d fished out of one of your bags, and Joel howls as you press the fresh bandage — well, not a bandage, one of the t-shirts Tommy had stuffed in Joel’s backpack. She watches you pull the tape off the roll, tear it off with your teeth and press it down across Joel’s stomach. He winces, body convulsing as he grabs your arm, his knuckles white.
“I know,” you mutter, your eyes glued to his wound. You can’t seem to look at Joel either. “I know, I know, I know, I know.” Your eyes flick to hers, and Ellie forces herself to meet them. “Put pressure on it.”
She does as you say, pressing down like you’d shown her.
Joel reaches up and grabs the front of your coat with a bloody hand, yanks you downward.
“Leave.”
It had been absolute fucking hell, getting him here. It felt like you’d been in that train yard forever, Ellie keeping pressure on Joel’s stomach while you tried to find something that would work. You used the tarp Ellie had pulled down, ripped some cushions out of one of the long-abandoned train cars, and some slats of wood to make something like a sled. Then you’d tied it between the two horses with enough slack that they could pull it. Ellie was impressed.
Except then you had to get Joel onto it.
He had screamed. Louder than he was screaming now, but maybe that was just the open air, the rolling field beyond the train yard letting his voice echo so it felt louder than it was. Ellie couldn’t ignore the fear that had shot through her at the noise, and she’d clamped her palm over his mouth.
“You need to shut the fuck up, Joel,” she’d whispered to him, and his eyes had flown open them, meeting hers with a stare so withering she thought she’d disappear. “This is all fucked up, and I’m sorry, but if you don’t shut up, those guys that did this are gonna hear you and they’re gonna come and they’re gonna kill Liv, alright? I’m not letting that happen. So shut up.”
To his credit, he did. Sort of.
The pair of you lugged him onto your makeshift sled, and he bit back his protests so hard his lip split between his teeth, blood dripping down the corner of his mouth.
“I’m sorry,” you kept saying to him, crouched beside him on the sled. You slid the belt off from around his waist, the leather flicking through the air, and Ellie watched as you slipped it under him, using it to keep the wad of fabric pressed to his wound. You put the end through the buckle and glanced at her. “Cover his mouth.”
She did as you said, and when you pulled the belt tight, Joel howled.
Without another word, you were back in the saddles, and you gave Ellie one last glance before flicking your horse’s reins. She did the same, and you started slow, making sure the tarp and the ropes would hold. When it seemed to work, you picked up the pace some, but you stopped every half mile or so, dismounting to check that Joel was still secure.
The suburb you’d ridden through was a blessing. Ellie could still see the fear in your face, the unease you weren’t shy about showing. “Do we keep going?”
You glanced down at Joel, up at the sky. “It’ll be dark soon. We can’t drag him through the night like this, and we need rest too.” Your head on a swivel, you surveyed the small neighbourhood. “There,” you said finally, inclining your head toward the house you were now holed up in the basement of. “That’ll do for now.”
“You don’t like it,” Ellie said, realizing quickly that she was pointing out the obvious.
“I don’t like any of this,” you said, and there was an edge to your voice she hadn’t heard before.
You were scared. Just as scared as she was, maybe even more.
“Leave,” Joel says again, and as you lean over him, a ring on a chain slips out of your collar. He catches it, slipping a bloodstained finger through the metal. “Please, Liv.”
You shake your head. “Shut up, Joel.”
“Olivia.”
Ellie’s only heard Joel use your full name maybe twice since she’s been in your charge. It seems to bounce off the basement walls, and your eyes are glistening as Joel’s hand moves from the ring back to the front of your coat, and his other hand lifts to match. He pulls you down roughly.
“You go,” he murmurs, pulling on your coat like it’ll convince you. “You go, both of you. You leave me and you keep going.”
“Shut up, Joel,” you say again, wrenching your eyes from his and trying to twist out of his grip. But he won’t let you. “I’m not leaving!”
His words come out in bursts, punctuated with groans, but he doesn’t release you. “You made me…made me leave you behind in Kansas…City.” His eyes roll back a moment, but Ellie keeps her pressure steady. “We promised. Keep…your damn…promises, Liv. Go. Let me go.”
“No!” You shake your head, pushing at his hands. “We stay together. That’s what we promised. Together. I won’t leave you. I won’t let you go.”
The waver in your voice makes Ellie’s heart ache, but it quickly turns to concern as Joel shoves you away. You slip back, your boot sliding out from under you, and land on your ass on the concrete. “Liv,” Ellie calls, reaching for you, but you wave her off, getting back to your feet and then hauling her to hers. She watches, steps back from the gross mattress you’ve laid Joel out on — that was a whole other ordeal — and reaches for one of the sleeping bags, unfurling it and spreading it across him, tucking it right under his chin.
Ellie stares at her boots, but when you brush past her, stomping up the stairs, she turns back to see that Joel’s eyes are on her.
“Please,” he mutters, his bottom lip quivering.
She just shakes her head. “I go where she goes.” And then follows you up.
You’re standing at the kitchen sink, your hands braced on either side. Your shoulders shake with your breaths, and Ellie thinks you’re crying at first — she wouldn’t blame you if you were — but when you turn, your eyes are clear. Ellie grips the door handle with one hand, hovering at the top of the stairs, her other hand tapping nervously against the wooden door.
“What are we gonna do, Liv?”
It’s a loaded fucking question, she knows, but it’s the most pressing one. What are you going to do?
“We should go,” you say, and your face crumples as you say it.
Ellie’s brows shoot up into her hairline. “What?”
“We should go,” you repeat, lifting your hands from the sink to shove your hands through your hair, “that’s the logical thing to do, I know. We should keep going, leave him here, but I don’t think I can.” A broken laugh escapes your mouth, the sound cracking as you drop your head forward and sob. “I can’t leave him.”
“I know,” Ellie says, “so we won’t. We’ll fix him.”
“He’ll push us away, Ellie.”
“I don’t care,” she says, shaking her head. She steps toward you, into the kitchen, and her hand hovers over the countertop before she brings it down slowly, her fist against the cracked stone. “He wasn’t bit, he’s not turning into one of them. This isn’t like Tess in the museum.” You flinch at her name, but Ellie ignores it. “We can help him. He can stop being a stubborn fuck long enough to let us.”
Your face shifts into something like gratitude, but it’s a fleeting moment.
“What if he’s right, Ellie? I have no idea where we are, if it’s safe. There could be Infected or Clickers waiting next door for all I know. Or…people. And this far out, I don’t know what’s worse.”
“We can’t leave him, Liv.”
“It’ll kill me to do it,” you say, shaking your head as a tear slips down your face, leaving a wet track down your cheek, “but if it keeps you safe, then—”
The thought has bile rising in Ellie’s throat, and she cuts you off. “No. I won’t lose somebody else I care about. Not when I could actually fucking do something about it! He doesn’t get to make this choice for us! Isn’t that what you told me? In Jackson, you said it. He doesn’t get to make our choices for us.” She plants her feet, lifting her chin as she stares at you, the tears in her eyes matching yours, but she doesn’t care. “I’m not leaving him.”
You stare at her for a long moment, a million questions in your eyes. Ellie hopes you’ll ask them. She’s not sure why, but she wants to tell you everything.
“Ellie—”
“I haven’t told you yet,” she starts, picking the words carefully, “how I got bit the first time.”
+
She tells you her story, and it nearly brings you to your knees. The worst part is, she tells the story well. Her voice is strong as she recounts it to you, unwavering as she explains details that make your gut twist, make your heart ache.
Knowing what you do, having been in the mall before they barred anyone from entering, it paints a clear picture in your head. You can see it, know where they stood when it happened, where Ellie went afterward. She omits a few details, but you can put the rest of the pieces together — what happened to Riley, Marlene dragging Ellie back to that house that you, Joel, and Tess snuck into.
How fucking insane it feels now, that your intention was to go after Robert, get the car battery and get as far from the Boston QZ as possible. To go find Tommy. Which, in a way, you did. It didn’t go how you’d planned it — nothing seems to have gone the way you planned it, but you did it. You can’t allow yourself to think about everything you’ve lost, of the lingering idea that you might lose Joel, because that might be the tipping point. That might make you lose yourself. You had put it perfectly when you told Ellie: it would kill you to leave him behind.
But yet, here you are. In the grand scheme of things, it all seems fucking impossible. You should have died a long time ago, and you didn’t; that has to count for something. Has to prove that fate doesn’t get to make all your choices for you.
Neither does Joel.
Ellie’s eyes are shining as she sits across from you, cross-legged on the kitchen floor. You’d both slumped to the ground when she started talking, and you found yourself stuck in place as she recounted her past. But now, you reach out and grab her to you, pulling her into a tight hug, fitting your chin against her shoulder. She hugs you back tightly, a little hitch of her breath in your ear, and you squeeze her back.
“I’m gonna go upstairs,” you tell her as you pull back, confusion etching her brow as you speak, “and see what I can find. You check this floor, and yell if you find anything, got it?”
The corner of her mouth twitches, and she nods. “Got it.”
Before you can step back, she pulls you back, squeezing again, and you drop your head against hers, kissing the top of her head. Your mind is a mess, brimming with fear and concern and worry and emotions you have no name for. But you shove them aside and step back, touching your hand to Ellie’s cheek.
Then you’re both gone, you bolting up the stairs, pulling your gun out when you reach the first landing. You’d done a quick sweep of the house when you’d first gotten Joel inside, but you were too concerned with getting him out of the cold to do a thorough job.
Now, you move through each room like a hurricane, stowing your gun when you’re confident nothing is lurking. You rip apart every drawer, sifting through the debris left behind by…Infected? The previous owners? Raiders? You can’t be sure, but there’s gotta be something at least semi-helpful in here, and goddamn it, you will find it.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon.”
Your frustrated cry echoes through the shattered bathroom when you wrench the medicine cabinet open and find it empty, the drawers beneath the sink equally so. You’d been so lucky between Boston and Wyoming, and now, fucking nothing. Tommy had given you some first aid supplies to take with you, but it wasn’t enough for what happened to Joel. You need to get his wound closed — you’d cut off your arm for a needle and thread, or that medical glue stuff that Deanna always kept on hand back in the QZ. You—
“LIV!”
You sprint down the stairs like you’re being chased, half sliding down the last few as you dart for the kitchen. Ellie shouts your name again, and you can’t read her tone, but she did what you asked.
You find her standing in the kitchen, one of the drawers sprawled on the floor, one of those plastic utensil organizers upended, but as soon as she sees you, she holds out her find.
Black thread, lots of it, and a large needle stuck through it all.
The stairs rattle as you head back to the basement. Joel is moaning, tiny gasps falling past his lips, and the state of him makes your chest ache, but you shove it all aside. “Ellie, find the flask — in Joel’s bag, or mine, I don’t know. We need to sanitize that needle, at least.”
She turns to her task, and you move closer to Joel. When you pull the sleeping bag away, Joel flinches, his eyes slitting open. You lift a hand, sifting your fingers through his hair, not missing the way he leans into your touch.
“I told you…to leave me,” he hisses, his eyes fluttering slightly.
“And I tried to, you stubborn fuck,” you tell him, feeling the tears crawl up your throat. “Ellie won’t leave, and we made new promises after KC. We stay together. No matter what.”
Ellie appears on his other side, the flask in one hand and the needle and thread in the other. You take both from her, then lean down to press your lips to Joel’s forehead.
“This is gonna fucking hurt, baby.”
He gives a short nod, and you set to work.
After you clean the needle best you can with the liquor in the flask, you bring it to Joel’s lips, tipping the liquid into his mouth. He sputters, but gets some of it down, and you know it’s not nearly enough, but it’s all you can do.
You move his hands away from where they’d been resting on his stomach, holding the t-shirt to his wound. Ellie hisses when you pull it away, exposing the jagged gashes left by the bat handle. You wipe away some of the blood — it’s bleeding less, which you hope is a good sign — and then thread the needle, snapping the thread between your teeth.
You force yourself to block out the way Joel’s breathing changes, the way you can feel him watching you, his head lolled to the side. You refuse to hear the loud groan he lets out when you start the first stitch, trying to be as gentle as you can. His body jerks, and he grabs your elbow with surprising strength.
“Liv,” he grits, and you can’t look at him.
“Ellie,” you say, and it’s all you have to. She grabs his other hand tightly, threading their fingers together and using it as an anchor, pinning his top half down. Her voice is hushed as she talks to him; you can barely make out what she’s saying, but you tune it out completely as you keep stitching.
Joel lets out another loud groan when you tie off the final stitch, and you reach over him for your bag, fishing out one of the shirts you’d taken from Jackson. Ellie is still talking to him, her head bowed with his as you rip the fabric into long strips, stretching it until you’re sure it’ll wrap around his middle.
She keeps talking as you slide the fabric under him, lay another piece on the wound itself, and then tie off the makeshift bandage. You sink back on your heels, heave a breath, and Ellie finally looks up at you.
“It’s done?”
“Yeah,” you nod, wiping the back of your hand across your clammy forehead. You feel like hell. “It’s done.”
+
Two days pass.
Two days, and Joel doesn’t get any better. He barely opens his eyes. In turn, yours don’t close. Your ass is frozen to the cold concrete, watching him breathe, keeping your hand hovered on his chest to make sure your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you and he’s still alive. Worry keeps your heart in an iron grip, and hunger makes your stomach twist. You should have rationed better, should have looked for something useful back on that campus, should have—
“You should get some sleep,” Ellie says, her low voice cutting through your thoughts. She’s sat on the other side of the mattress, knees pulled to her chest, comics on the floor beside her. You managed to pull some of the couch cushions off the first floor and brought them down for makeshift beds — Ellie’s slept a bit, not as much as she should, but you haven’t slept a wink.
“I—” you start, but she shakes her head.
“I can watch him, make sure he’s still breathing. I’ll wake you if anything changes, I swear.”
A tear seeps down your cheek, and you swipe it away. “Thank you, Ellie.”
She just nods, and you trade places, Ellie handing you the sleeping bag she’d had draped around her shoulders as she moves. Joel twitches, his hand curling around the edge of the mattress, and as you settle down onto the couch cushions, you bring yourself close enough to thread your fingers through his.
His head turns in your direction, lips parted on a breath, and sleep grabs hold of you.
+
You open your eyes to buzzing fluorescents. Joel’s brown jacket is folded in your lap, a steaming cup of coffee held in your grip. Your head swivels in both directions. You know this hospital — Austin State. You drove your dad here once, after he sliced his thumb open at work. You’ve been here before.
But you know damn well it doesn’t look like this anymore.
The clothes you’re wearing are clean, your wedding ring perched on your finger rather than a chain around your neck, and everything is—
“Mrs. Miller?”
Your head snaps up, regarding the pretty nurse in front of you, clipboard clutched in her hand. Something about her reminds you of Tess, and a lump forms in your throat.
“Y-yes?”
“The doctors asked me to update you on your husband,” she says, and your brow furrows. What…? “Things are—”
The rest of her sentence is lost on you as the sliding doors to your left open, sirens and shouting echoing from outside. And your parents walk inside, your mother’s eyes landing on you as they beeline for you.
“Olivia, what…?”
“Mom.”
Joel’s coat falls to the floor as you dash toward her, throwing your arms around her, hugging her tightly. Then you move to your dad, tears leaking from your eyes as the nurse watches from afar, stepping closer to your mother and saying more words you don’t hear.
The lights overhead flicker, and your stomach does a backflip as the nurse disappears, and you’re left alone with your parents. You pick Joel’s coat up from the floor and sink back into your chair, while your dad takes the one beside you and reaches for your hand. Your mother paces the floor in front of the chairs.
“It’ll all be okay, honey,” he tells you. “Joel will be just fine.”
The lights flicker again, and your mother whirls on you.
“How could you be so selfish, Olivia?” she spits, and guilt surges through you like a lightning bolt. “You could have prevented all of this, you realize. Don’t you? This is your fault. How could you let this go on for so long, hiding in Boston the way you were?”
“I-I—” you start, but the lights flicker again, and your parents have vanished.
The hospital has changed. The fluorescents are now cracked and burnt out. There are holes in the walls and ceiling, foliage sprouting through the cracks in the ground. Dirt and debris litter the floor, chairs and cots turned over. You’re still clutching Joel’s coat in your hands.
“Livvy!”
You spin on your heel to see Anna standing at the end of the hallway, a broad grin on her face as she starts to run for you. More tears had formed at your mother’s harsh — albeit truthful — words, and more come as your sister throws her arms around you, crushing you to her.
“Oh, I missed you,” she murmurs, petting her hand over the back of your head. It only makes you cry harder, hug her tighter. “My favourite sister.”
“I’m your only sister,” you manage to say through the tears.
“Still my favourite,” she laughs, kissing the side of your head. “You’re doing great, you know that, right?” Her hand rubs up and down your back, and you fist your hands in the back of her jacket.
“I’m scared, Anna.”
“I know, Livvy. But it’s okay. We’ll be okay. It’ll all be okay.”
“How do you know?”
She responds, you know that she does, but her voice has turned to an echo, the solidness of her holding you melting away to nothing until you’re left there in the darkened hallway, alone.
+
You wake with a jolt, your cheeks wet as you snap upright. Ellie’s head lifts, her eyes shifting from Joel’s still-breathing form to you, tear-streaked and breathing heavily.
“Bad dream?” she asks, and you open your mouth, she assumes to say something, but only a sob comes out.
“This is all my fault,” you whimper, and the crack in your voice makes Ellie’s chest hurt. “None of this would have happened if I hadn’t been so fucking selfish.” You shut your eyes tight, but tears keep leaking down the sides of your face, and Ellie pushes to her feet, rounding the mattress before crouching in front of you.
“What are you talking about?”
When you don’t answer, don’t open your eyes, Ellie grabs your shoulders, shakes you once, then twice.
“Liv, tell me. Please.”
You let out a shaky breath, and slowly, your eyes open. Ellie sinks onto her knees, still holding onto you. You reach up and cover one of her hands with yours, more tears sliding down your cheeks.
“I’m immune,” you tell her, and each word feels like a punch in the gut, “just like you.”
She sinks backward, not believing what she’s hearing. You can’t be, you’re not…she doesn’t…
“Joel and I went on a run, past the wall back in Boston,” you say, the words spilling out like an open tap. “Shit went south, I never saw the thing coming, barely realized what had happened when it bit me. Joel put it down, told the people we were with to leave, that he’d deal with it.” Your eyes flash up to her before cutting to Joel. “That he’d deal with me.”
Ellie just stares at you.
“I wanted him to kill me,” you admit, your face scrunching, and Ellie realizes it might be the first time you’ve said the words out loud. Maybe it is. “I wanted him to end it and go back to Boston and be safe and live. But he wouldn’t go. Wouldn’t leave me.”
“Liv—” Ellie starts, but you shake your head.
“Then Joel tells me that before he and Tommy got to Boston, they crossed paths with my sister. Found her in some FEDRA shelter. They were attacked and she was bit, but she kept it hidden, asked Joel and Tommy to get her out, and they almost did, till a soldier caught her changing the bandage and hauled her away. Joel never saw her again after that, but it had been three days since she’d been bit, and she hadn’t so much as twitched.”
You pause, wiping the wetness from your face before you keep talking. “It was then that I realized, when we were in the mall, when Henry and Emily’s father had turned and attacked their mother, it should have been me, too. I ate the same food as their father, and every other person who had, turned. I thought I was just lucky.
“So we waited it out,” you say, inhaling sharply, “and nothing. I woke up the next morning, and I was still me. Still alive. We went back to the QZ, and that was when Nick caught us, when he and Joel shot each other. Nick figured it out, and he took Deanna and the kids out of Boston that same day. I never saw them again, not until we got to Jackson.”
“And you never told anyone else,” Ellie whispers, choosing her words carefully. She feels like a live wire, her brain going a million miles a minute.
You shake your head. “Not willingly. Tommy found out accidentally, and he told Tess, but I didn’t know that she knew until…” You trail off, wiping more tears and clearing your throat. “Joel and Tommy fought about it, and I felt so guilty, I thought about turning myself in.” Your eyes cut to Joel. “I brought it up, and I thought Joel was gonna keel over on the spot. I took it back, but…Tommy left, joined the Fireflies, was out of Boston before we knew it.
“It’s my fault. I’ve lied, I’ve hidden what I am, and the guilt…god, it never goes away. I should have left you two in Jackson.” Your voice cracks, and you cover your mouth with your hand. “I should have left you where I knew you’d be safe, and I should have turned myself over to the Fireflies. Then none of this would have happened. Joel would be okay, and I…”
Something in Ellie’s chest goes tight with the sob that wracks through you. Her hand darts forward, reaching for your free one, and she swallows back the lump in her throat before speaking. “He can’t live without you. Even I can see that, and I don’t know shit about love, not really.” Ellie shakes her head, meeting your wet eyes. “This doesn’t change anything. I have to protect you guys — just like you protect me. Joel needs you. I need you, and we can’t change the past, but I can save the fucking world, right? I can do it. I will do it.”
You stare at her for a long moment before lowering your hand from your face. “Where the hell did you come from, huh, kid?”
Without another thought, Ellie surges forward, throwing her arms around your neck and pulling you to her. She feels you tense at first, but then you relax ever so slightly, hugging her back.
Joel wheezes suddenly, making you jump apart, and you scramble over to him, laying two fingers against his neck and setting your other palm on his chest. Ellie watches as you pull the blanket back, lift his shirt to inspect his wound. The look on your face gives it away, and Ellie bites back her fear.
Pulling all the fabric back into place, you sink back next to Ellie, your shoulders pressed together. “He needs meds. Stuff we don’t have, and I have no clue where to start looking. We stripped this place top to bottom, and I have no fucking idea where we are.”
There are fresh tears on your cheeks as you speak, and Ellie reaches for your hand. “We’ll be okay,” she says, trying to make her voice sound more confident than she feels. “It’ll all be okay.”
For a moment, you stare back at her like she’s got three heads or something, but then you shake your head. “How do you know?” you ask, but your voice is different, stronger.
“I don’t,” she replies, truthfully. “But it made you stop crying.”
You actually scoff out a laugh, squeezing your fingers around hers.
+
The next day, the hunger gets the better of you. You’d finished the last of what Tommy had given you your second night in the basement, though the final small chunk of a granola bar was stashed in your coat pocket for Joel. You still had some water, but supply is running low, and you know enough to know that snow melt isn’t an option, and you sure as hell can’t build a fire in the basement. If you built one outside, it’d only draw attention.
You have to find something to help Joel. He’s got a fever now, his skin clammy and pale, and it only makes you more worried than you already are. Fevers mean infection, you remember Deanna telling you. It’s the body's way of fending off the bacteria, but you know that in Joel’s condition, it might very well kill him.
The rest of the house is decidedly empty. You’re sure you’ve been through every broken cupboard in the kitchen, turned over every piece of furniture in every room. Nothing remotely helpful.
You’re coming back down the basement stairs, finding Ellie leaning over Joel, dabbing his lips with what remains of your water. He wheezes a breath, head lolling on the mattress, and Ellie shoots you a worried look as your boots hit the concrete. “He looked thirsty,” she tells you, and you just nod.
This is probably a shitty idea, you think to yourself as you cross the room, reaching for the rifle leaned against the wall beside your bags. Ellie’s eyes follow you, boring holes into your back as you sling the gun over your shoulder.
“What are you…?”
“I’m gonna go look in the house next door, see what I can find,” you tell her, your voice tight as you reach into your pocket and produce your pistol. “You stay down here, and you don’t come out unless I tell you, you hear me?”
“And if you don’t come back?” she asks bluntly, and it shoots a chill down your spine.
“You wait till morning, and if I’m not back, then you take one of the horses and leave. You know how to point yourself north — you do that, then turn right around and go south.”
The words settle between you, Ellie staring you down as she processes what you’ve said. This is a risk, you know, but you don’t have a choice. You’re both starving. Joel can’t get better on a few drops of water. You need to do something.
Before she can reply, you step back toward the stairs and head back up, closing the basement door behind you.
It’s bitterly cold, the air snaking right down your throat and making your lungs constrict. You bury your face in your collar, ducking through the door out the side of the garage after briefly checking on the horses. You try to look out toward the road as you cross the small gap between the houses, but all you see is white, the snow having covered your tracks leading into the garage.
The wind howls as you slink between the houses, rattling doorknobs until one gives way. You step inside, glad to find it just as cold as the outside. Any sign of warmth would mean trouble — people. You sling the rifle from your shoulder anyway, lifting it as you sweep through the house. Your fingers shake on the trigger, and you lay your steps carefully, pulling back when a stair or floorboard creaks. Your jaw aches, teeth clenched hard as you make your way through.
It’s just as empty as the rest of them.
You should know better, you realize. Hasn’t this been your job for the last twenty years of your life? Finding anything of value in this picked-over world, anything that might keep someone alive a little longer, might stop them from going hungry or bring some semblance of joy back into their life. Haven’t you been doing this long enough to know?
A place like this, the suburban ghost town you’re hiding out in, is the type of place you would have hit first when things first went to shit, big houses filled to burst with anything and everything, their occupants carted off by FEDRA or otherwise, maybe tried to make a break for it themselves. But you weren’t the only one with that line of thinking — these places had been emptied long ago, and you’re being stupid, putting yourself in the line of fire, however indirect it may be. You don’t know what’s lurking around the corner, what’s—
You stop short, leaning against the kitchen counter of the second house you’ve swept through. The backyards are all connected, fences long toppled, and you darted out of the first house the moment you realized how empty it was. But here..
The crack in the floorboard seems to wink at you as you stare down at it, and it makes your brow arch. You crouch down slowly, gripping the counter for support, your knees barking at the cold ground biting through your jeans. The board gives easily, a definite hiding spot, and a can of peaches sits beneath, tucked into the corner of the hiding place. The label long is faded, and the expiry date is probably older than Ellie, but you don’t care.
You dart back out into the cold, the wind whistling through the trees, snaking down your throat and fisting your lungs. But you don’t care. You move quickly, heading back through the door on the side of the garage, tears sparking in your eyes as you clutch the can to your chest. Ellie’s head snaps up as you stampede down the stairs, nearly collapsing onto the cushions beside where she’s sitting, thrusting the can toward her.
“What—?” she starts, eyes going wide when she sees what you’ve handed her. “Peaches.”
“Peaches,” you repeat, pulling Joel’s knife from where you’d tucked it beneath your jacket. It takes a bit of manoeuvring, using the tip of the knife to puncture the can all the way around, tapping the hilt with the heel of your hand. Ellie just watches, fingers pressed to her mouth, and you’re both holding your breath, praying to God that the inside of the can doesn’t make your stomach roil.
But you flip the top up, revealing the contents, and a giddy laugh slips off your tongue. Shiny, pale orange fruit, with thick, clear syrup nearly to the top of the can. You yank off your gloves, immediately fishing a piece out, not caring how it drips down your fingers as you bring it to your mouth and bite.
Sweet.
It tastes like summertime, like warmth and sunshine and happiness. Your mind faintly recalls your mother’s peach cobbler, a family recipe, served with vanilla ice cream on a hot day.
Your chest warms as you swallow, the first real bit of food you’ve had for days settling in your stomach, the sweetness slicking down the marrow of your bones. You watch Ellie follow suit, tossing her gloves to the side before taking her own piece and the awe on her face as she takes her first bite makes you laugh out loud.
“Joel,” she says suddenly, and you just nod, cupping your half-eaten piece in your hand as you move over to the mattress.
He rouses easily, but he’s barely awake, his brow furrowed with pain, face leaned into your palm when you ask him to open your eyes. He’s given up on telling you to leave, at least. It takes a lot of coaxing to get him to swallow the small piece of peach, but you get there, brushing your fingers through his hair, ignoring the pit in your stomach at how hot his forehead is, his hair coiled with sweat.
It’s not enough, you know. It won’t fix him, won’t make anything better. But for now, for this very moment, you let your heart settle.
strawberry wine - joel miller x ofc!liv stone/fem!reader
after - part thirty-six
SERIES MASTERLIST | MAIN MASTERLIST | READ ON AO3
what do you do now?
a/n: I'm not calling this a comeback cuz I don't trust myself and the last time I posted a part I said I was gonna have this thing done by the time s2 aired and that sure as shit didn't happen but we are CLOSER than I thought and I have plans for cherry wine (what's that? oh you have no idea yet hahA) so here have this thing love you all bye
word count: 6.2k
warnings: truly don't know why I bother BUT violence, gore, injuries, emotional breakdowns y'know it's a whole thing
✨@friskito-library for updates on new parts/works✨
Joel is screaming.
It’s so loud that Ellie can feel the thrum of it in the back of her mind, echoing off the walls of the basement. She can’t bring herself to look at you, to see the fucking fear in your face, the same look that’s been there from the moment you all set foot on the campus.
You never should have gone. You should have stayed in Jackson. She shouldn’t have fought with Joel, she should have kept her fucking mouth shut and told you and Joel that she wanted to stay. But she didn’t. And what a load of good it did everybody.
Ellie hands you the roll of duct tape you’d fished out of one of your bags, and Joel howls as you press the fresh bandage — well, not a bandage, one of the t-shirts Tommy had stuffed in Joel’s backpack. She watches you pull the tape off the roll, tear it off with your teeth and press it down across Joel’s stomach. He winces, body convulsing as he grabs your arm, his knuckles white.
“I know,” you mutter, your eyes glued to his wound. You can’t seem to look at Joel either. “I know, I know, I know, I know.” Your eyes flick to hers, and Ellie forces herself to meet them. “Put pressure on it.”
She does as you say, pressing down like you’d shown her.
Joel reaches up and grabs the front of your coat with a bloody hand, yanks you downward.
“Leave.”
It had been absolute fucking hell, getting him here. It felt like you’d been in that train yard forever, Ellie keeping pressure on Joel’s stomach while you tried to find something that would work. You used the tarp Ellie had pulled down, ripped some cushions out of one of the long-abandoned train cars, and some slats of wood to make something like a sled. Then you’d tied it between the two horses with enough slack that they could pull it. Ellie was impressed.
Except then you had to get Joel onto it.
He had screamed. Louder than he was screaming now, but maybe that was just the open air, the rolling field beyond the train yard letting his voice echo so it felt louder than it was. Ellie couldn’t ignore the fear that had shot through her at the noise, and she’d clamped her palm over his mouth.
“You need to shut the fuck up, Joel,” she’d whispered to him, and his eyes had flown open them, meeting hers with a stare so withering she thought she’d disappear. “This is all fucked up, and I’m sorry, but if you don’t shut up, those guys that did this are gonna hear you and they’re gonna come and they’re gonna kill Liv, alright? I’m not letting that happen. So shut up.”
To his credit, he did. Sort of.
The pair of you lugged him onto your makeshift sled, and he bit back his protests so hard his lip split between his teeth, blood dripping down the corner of his mouth.
“I’m sorry,” you kept saying to him, crouched beside him on the sled. You slid the belt off from around his waist, the leather flicking through the air, and Ellie watched as you slipped it under him, using it to keep the wad of fabric pressed to his wound. You put the end through the buckle and glanced at her. “Cover his mouth.”
She did as you said, and when you pulled the belt tight, Joel howled.
Without another word, you were back in the saddles, and you gave Ellie one last glance before flicking your horse’s reins. She did the same, and you started slow, making sure the tarp and the ropes would hold. When it seemed to work, you picked up the pace some, but you stopped every half mile or so, dismounting to check that Joel was still secure.
The suburb you’d ridden through was a blessing. Ellie could still see the fear in your face, the unease you weren’t shy about showing. “Do we keep going?”
You glanced down at Joel, up at the sky. “It’ll be dark soon. We can’t drag him through the night like this, and we need rest too.” Your head on a swivel, you surveyed the small neighbourhood. “There,” you said finally, inclining your head toward the house you were now holed up in the basement of. “That’ll do for now.”
“You don’t like it,” Ellie said, realizing quickly that she was pointing out the obvious.
“I don’t like any of this,” you said, and there was an edge to your voice she hadn’t heard before.
You were scared. Just as scared as she was, maybe even more.
“Leave,” Joel says again, and as you lean over him, a ring on a chain slips out of your collar. He catches it, slipping a bloodstained finger through the metal. “Please, Liv.”
You shake your head. “Shut up, Joel.”
“Olivia.”
Ellie’s only heard Joel use your full name maybe twice since she’s been in your charge. It seems to bounce off the basement walls, and your eyes are glistening as Joel’s hand moves from the ring back to the front of your coat, and his other hand lifts to match. He pulls you down roughly.
“You go,” he murmurs, pulling on your coat like it’ll convince you. “You go, both of you. You leave me and you keep going.”
“Shut up, Joel,” you say again, wrenching your eyes from his and trying to twist out of his grip. But he won’t let you. “I’m not leaving!”
His words come out in bursts, punctuated with groans, but he doesn’t release you. “You made me…made me leave you behind in Kansas…City.” His eyes roll back a moment, but Ellie keeps her pressure steady. “We promised. Keep…your damn…promises, Liv. Go. Let me go.”
“No!” You shake your head, pushing at his hands. “We stay together. That’s what we promised. Together. I won’t leave you. I won’t let you go.”
The waver in your voice makes Ellie’s heart ache, but it quickly turns to concern as Joel shoves you away. You slip back, your boot sliding out from under you, and land on your ass on the concrete. “Liv,” Ellie calls, reaching for you, but you wave her off, getting back to your feet and then hauling her to hers. She watches, steps back from the gross mattress you’ve laid Joel out on — that was a whole other ordeal — and reaches for one of the sleeping bags, unfurling it and spreading it across him, tucking it right under his chin.
Ellie stares at her boots, but when you brush past her, stomping up the stairs, she turns back to see that Joel’s eyes are on her.
“Please,” he mutters, his bottom lip quivering.
She just shakes her head. “I go where she goes.” And then follows you up.
You’re standing at the kitchen sink, your hands braced on either side. Your shoulders shake with your breaths, and Ellie thinks you’re crying at first — she wouldn’t blame you if you were — but when you turn, your eyes are clear. Ellie grips the door handle with one hand, hovering at the top of the stairs, her other hand tapping nervously against the wooden door.
“What are we gonna do, Liv?”
It’s a loaded fucking question, she knows, but it’s the most pressing one. What are you going to do?
“We should go,” you say, and your face crumples as you say it.
Ellie’s brows shoot up into her hairline. “What?”
“We should go,” you repeat, lifting your hands from the sink to shove your hands through your hair, “that’s the logical thing to do, I know. We should keep going, leave him here, but I don’t think I can.” A broken laugh escapes your mouth, the sound cracking as you drop your head forward and sob. “I can’t leave him.”
“I know,” Ellie says, “so we won’t. We’ll fix him.”
“He’ll push us away, Ellie.”
“I don’t care,” she says, shaking her head. She steps toward you, into the kitchen, and her hand hovers over the countertop before she brings it down slowly, her fist against the cracked stone. “He wasn’t bit, he’s not turning into one of them. This isn’t like Tess in the museum.” You flinch at her name, but Ellie ignores it. “We can help him. He can stop being a stubborn fuck long enough to let us.”
Your face shifts into something like gratitude, but it’s a fleeting moment.
“What if he’s right, Ellie? I have no idea where we are, if it’s safe. There could be Infected or Clickers waiting next door for all I know. Or…people. And this far out, I don’t know what’s worse.”
“We can’t leave him, Liv.”
“It’ll kill me to do it,” you say, shaking your head as a tear slips down your face, leaving a wet track down your cheek, “but if it keeps you safe, then—”
The thought has bile rising in Ellie’s throat, and she cuts you off. “No. I won’t lose somebody else I care about. Not when I could actually fucking do something about it! He doesn’t get to make this choice for us! Isn’t that what you told me? In Jackson, you said it. He doesn’t get to make our choices for us.” She plants her feet, lifting her chin as she stares at you, the tears in her eyes matching yours, but she doesn’t care. “I’m not leaving him.”
You stare at her for a long moment, a million questions in your eyes. Ellie hopes you’ll ask them. She’s not sure why, but she wants to tell you everything.
“Ellie—”
“I haven’t told you yet,” she starts, picking the words carefully, “how I got bit the first time.”
+
She tells you her story, and it nearly brings you to your knees. The worst part is, she tells the story well. Her voice is strong as she recounts it to you, unwavering as she explains details that make your gut twist, make your heart ache.
Knowing what you do, having been in the mall before they barred anyone from entering, it paints a clear picture in your head. You can see it, know where they stood when it happened, where Ellie went afterward. She omits a few details, but you can put the rest of the pieces together — what happened to Riley, Marlene dragging Ellie back to that house that you, Joel, and Tess snuck into.
How fucking insane it feels now, that your intention was to go after Robert, get the car battery and get as far from the Boston QZ as possible. To go find Tommy. Which, in a way, you did. It didn’t go how you’d planned it — nothing seems to have gone the way you planned it, but you did it. You can’t allow yourself to think about everything you’ve lost, of the lingering idea that you might lose Joel, because that might be the tipping point. That might make you lose yourself. You had put it perfectly when you told Ellie: it would kill you to leave him behind.
But yet, here you are. In the grand scheme of things, it all seems fucking impossible. You should have died a long time ago, and you didn’t; that has to count for something. Has to prove that fate doesn’t get to make all your choices for you.
Neither does Joel.
Ellie’s eyes are shining as she sits across from you, cross-legged on the kitchen floor. You’d both slumped to the ground when she started talking, and you found yourself stuck in place as she recounted her past. But now, you reach out and grab her to you, pulling her into a tight hug, fitting your chin against her shoulder. She hugs you back tightly, a little hitch of her breath in your ear, and you squeeze her back.
“I’m gonna go upstairs,” you tell her as you pull back, confusion etching her brow as you speak, “and see what I can find. You check this floor, and yell if you find anything, got it?”
The corner of her mouth twitches, and she nods. “Got it.”
Before you can step back, she pulls you back, squeezing again, and you drop your head against hers, kissing the top of her head. Your mind is a mess, brimming with fear and concern and worry and emotions you have no name for. But you shove them aside and step back, touching your hand to Ellie’s cheek.
Then you’re both gone, you bolting up the stairs, pulling your gun out when you reach the first landing. You’d done a quick sweep of the house when you’d first gotten Joel inside, but you were too concerned with getting him out of the cold to do a thorough job.
Now, you move through each room like a hurricane, stowing your gun when you’re confident nothing is lurking. You rip apart every drawer, sifting through the debris left behind by…Infected? The previous owners? Raiders? You can’t be sure, but there’s gotta be something at least semi-helpful in here, and goddamn it, you will find it.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon.”
Your frustrated cry echoes through the shattered bathroom when you wrench the medicine cabinet open and find it empty, the drawers beneath the sink equally so. You’d been so lucky between Boston and Wyoming, and now, fucking nothing. Tommy had given you some first aid supplies to take with you, but it wasn’t enough for what happened to Joel. You need to get his wound closed — you’d cut off your arm for a needle and thread, or that medical glue stuff that Deanna always kept on hand back in the QZ. You—
“LIV!”
You sprint down the stairs like you’re being chased, half sliding down the last few as you dart for the kitchen. Ellie shouts your name again, and you can’t read her tone, but she did what you asked.
You find her standing in the kitchen, one of the drawers sprawled on the floor, one of those plastic utensil organizers upended, but as soon as she sees you, she holds out her find.
Black thread, lots of it, and a large needle stuck through it all.
The stairs rattle as you head back to the basement. Joel is moaning, tiny gasps falling past his lips, and the state of him makes your chest ache, but you shove it all aside. “Ellie, find the flask — in Joel’s bag, or mine, I don’t know. We need to sanitize that needle, at least.”
She turns to her task, and you move closer to Joel. When you pull the sleeping bag away, Joel flinches, his eyes slitting open. You lift a hand, sifting your fingers through his hair, not missing the way he leans into your touch.
“I told you…to leave me,” he hisses, his eyes fluttering slightly.
“And I tried to, you stubborn fuck,” you tell him, feeling the tears crawl up your throat. “Ellie won’t leave, and we made new promises after KC. We stay together. No matter what.”
Ellie appears on his other side, the flask in one hand and the needle and thread in the other. You take both from her, then lean down to press your lips to Joel’s forehead.
“This is gonna fucking hurt, baby.”
He gives a short nod, and you set to work.
After you clean the needle best you can with the liquor in the flask, you bring it to Joel’s lips, tipping the liquid into his mouth. He sputters, but gets some of it down, and you know it’s not nearly enough, but it’s all you can do.
You move his hands away from where they’d been resting on his stomach, holding the t-shirt to his wound. Ellie hisses when you pull it away, exposing the jagged gashes left by the bat handle. You wipe away some of the blood — it’s bleeding less, which you hope is a good sign — and then thread the needle, snapping the thread between your teeth.
You force yourself to block out the way Joel’s breathing changes, the way you can feel him watching you, his head lolled to the side. You refuse to hear the loud groan he lets out when you start the first stitch, trying to be as gentle as you can. His body jerks, and he grabs your elbow with surprising strength.
“Liv,” he grits, and you can’t look at him.
“Ellie,” you say, and it’s all you have to. She grabs his other hand tightly, threading their fingers together and using it as an anchor, pinning his top half down. Her voice is hushed as she talks to him; you can barely make out what she’s saying, but you tune it out completely as you keep stitching.
Joel lets out another loud groan when you tie off the final stitch, and you reach over him for your bag, fishing out one of the shirts you’d taken from Jackson. Ellie is still talking to him, her head bowed with his as you rip the fabric into long strips, stretching it until you’re sure it’ll wrap around his middle.
She keeps talking as you slide the fabric under him, lay another piece on the wound itself, and then tie off the makeshift bandage. You sink back on your heels, heave a breath, and Ellie finally looks up at you.
“It’s done?”
“Yeah,” you nod, wiping the back of your hand across your clammy forehead. You feel like hell. “It’s done.”
+
Two days pass.
Two days, and Joel doesn’t get any better. He barely opens his eyes. In turn, yours don’t close. Your ass is frozen to the cold concrete, watching him breathe, keeping your hand hovered on his chest to make sure your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you and he’s still alive. Worry keeps your heart in an iron grip, and hunger makes your stomach twist. You should have rationed better, should have looked for something useful back on that campus, should have—
“You should get some sleep,” Ellie says, her low voice cutting through your thoughts. She’s sat on the other side of the mattress, knees pulled to her chest, comics on the floor beside her. You managed to pull some of the couch cushions off the first floor and brought them down for makeshift beds — Ellie’s slept a bit, not as much as she should, but you haven’t slept a wink.
“I—” you start, but she shakes her head.
“I can watch him, make sure he’s still breathing. I’ll wake you if anything changes, I swear.”
A tear seeps down your cheek, and you swipe it away. “Thank you, Ellie.”
She just nods, and you trade places, Ellie handing you the sleeping bag she’d had draped around her shoulders as she moves. Joel twitches, his hand curling around the edge of the mattress, and as you settle down onto the couch cushions, you bring yourself close enough to thread your fingers through his.
His head turns in your direction, lips parted on a breath, and sleep grabs hold of you.
+
You open your eyes to buzzing fluorescents. Joel’s brown jacket is folded in your lap, a steaming cup of coffee held in your grip. Your head swivels in both directions. You know this hospital — Austin State. You drove your dad here once, after he sliced his thumb open at work. You’ve been here before.
But you know damn well it doesn’t look like this anymore.
The clothes you’re wearing are clean, your wedding ring perched on your finger rather than a chain around your neck, and everything is—
“Mrs. Miller?”
Your head snaps up, regarding the pretty nurse in front of you, clipboard clutched in her hand. Something about her reminds you of Tess, and a lump forms in your throat.
“Y-yes?”
“The doctors asked me to update you on your husband,” she says, and your brow furrows. What…? “Things are—”
The rest of her sentence is lost on you as the sliding doors to your left open, sirens and shouting echoing from outside. And your parents walk inside, your mother’s eyes landing on you as they beeline for you.
“Olivia, what…?”
“Mom.”
Joel’s coat falls to the floor as you dash toward her, throwing your arms around her, hugging her tightly. Then you move to your dad, tears leaking from your eyes as the nurse watches from afar, stepping closer to your mother and saying more words you don’t hear.
The lights overhead flicker, and your stomach does a backflip as the nurse disappears, and you’re left alone with your parents. You pick Joel’s coat up from the floor and sink back into your chair, while your dad takes the one beside you and reaches for your hand. Your mother paces the floor in front of the chairs.
“It’ll all be okay, honey,” he tells you. “Joel will be just fine.”
The lights flicker again, and your mother whirls on you.
“How could you be so selfish, Olivia?” she spits, and guilt surges through you like a lightning bolt. “You could have prevented all of this, you realize. Don’t you? This is your fault. How could you let this go on for so long, hiding in Boston the way you were?”
“I-I—” you start, but the lights flicker again, and your parents have vanished.
The hospital has changed. The fluorescents are now cracked and burnt out. There are holes in the walls and ceiling, foliage sprouting through the cracks in the ground. Dirt and debris litter the floor, chairs and cots turned over. You’re still clutching Joel’s coat in your hands.
“Livvy!”
You spin on your heel to see Anna standing at the end of the hallway, a broad grin on her face as she starts to run for you. More tears had formed at your mother’s harsh — albeit truthful — words, and more come as your sister throws her arms around you, crushing you to her.
“Oh, I missed you,” she murmurs, petting her hand over the back of your head. It only makes you cry harder, hug her tighter. “My favourite sister.”
“I’m your only sister,” you manage to say through the tears.
“Still my favourite,” she laughs, kissing the side of your head. “You’re doing great, you know that, right?” Her hand rubs up and down your back, and you fist your hands in the back of her jacket.
“I’m scared, Anna.”
“I know, Livvy. But it’s okay. We’ll be okay. It’ll all be okay.”
“How do you know?”
She responds, you know that she does, but her voice has turned to an echo, the solidness of her holding you melting away to nothing until you’re left there in the darkened hallway, alone.
+
You wake with a jolt, your cheeks wet as you snap upright. Ellie’s head lifts, her eyes shifting from Joel’s still-breathing form to you, tear-streaked and breathing heavily.
“Bad dream?” she asks, and you open your mouth, she assumes to say something, but only a sob comes out.
“This is all my fault,” you whimper, and the crack in your voice makes Ellie’s chest hurt. “None of this would have happened if I hadn’t been so fucking selfish.” You shut your eyes tight, but tears keep leaking down the sides of your face, and Ellie pushes to her feet, rounding the mattress before crouching in front of you.
“What are you talking about?”
When you don’t answer, don’t open your eyes, Ellie grabs your shoulders, shakes you once, then twice.
“Liv, tell me. Please.”
You let out a shaky breath, and slowly, your eyes open. Ellie sinks onto her knees, still holding onto you. You reach up and cover one of her hands with yours, more tears sliding down your cheeks.
“I’m immune,” you tell her, and each word feels like a punch in the gut, “just like you.”
She sinks backward, not believing what she’s hearing. You can’t be, you’re not…she doesn’t…
“Joel and I went on a run, past the wall back in Boston,” you say, the words spilling out like an open tap. “Shit went south, I never saw the thing coming, barely realized what had happened when it bit me. Joel put it down, told the people we were with to leave, that he’d deal with it.” Your eyes flash up to her before cutting to Joel. “That he’d deal with me.”
Ellie just stares at you.
“I wanted him to kill me,” you admit, your face scrunching, and Ellie realizes it might be the first time you’ve said the words out loud. Maybe it is. “I wanted him to end it and go back to Boston and be safe and live. But he wouldn’t go. Wouldn’t leave me.”
“Liv—” Ellie starts, but you shake your head.
“Then Joel tells me that before he and Tommy got to Boston, they crossed paths with my sister. Found her in some FEDRA shelter. They were attacked and she was bit, but she kept it hidden, asked Joel and Tommy to get her out, and they almost did, till a soldier caught her changing the bandage and hauled her away. Joel never saw her again after that, but it had been three days since she’d been bit, and she hadn’t so much as twitched.”
You pause, wiping the wetness from your face before you keep talking. “It was then that I realized, when we were in the mall, when Henry and Emily’s father had turned and attacked their mother, it should have been me, too. I ate the same food as their father, and every other person who had, turned. I thought I was just lucky.
“So we waited it out,” you say, inhaling sharply, “and nothing. I woke up the next morning, and I was still me. Still alive. We went back to the QZ, and that was when Nick caught us, when he and Joel shot each other. Nick figured it out, and he took Deanna and the kids out of Boston that same day. I never saw them again, not until we got to Jackson.”
“And you never told anyone else,” Ellie whispers, choosing her words carefully. She feels like a live wire, her brain going a million miles a minute.
You shake your head. “Not willingly. Tommy found out accidentally, and he told Tess, but I didn’t know that she knew until…” You trail off, wiping more tears and clearing your throat. “Joel and Tommy fought about it, and I felt so guilty, I thought about turning myself in.” Your eyes cut to Joel. “I brought it up, and I thought Joel was gonna keel over on the spot. I took it back, but…Tommy left, joined the Fireflies, was out of Boston before we knew it.
“It’s my fault. I’ve lied, I’ve hidden what I am, and the guilt…god, it never goes away. I should have left you two in Jackson.” Your voice cracks, and you cover your mouth with your hand. “I should have left you where I knew you’d be safe, and I should have turned myself over to the Fireflies. Then none of this would have happened. Joel would be okay, and I…”
Something in Ellie’s chest goes tight with the sob that wracks through you. Her hand darts forward, reaching for your free one, and she swallows back the lump in her throat before speaking. “He can’t live without you. Even I can see that, and I don’t know shit about love, not really.” Ellie shakes her head, meeting your wet eyes. “This doesn’t change anything. I have to protect you guys — just like you protect me. Joel needs you. I need you, and we can’t change the past, but I can save the fucking world, right? I can do it. I will do it.”
You stare at her for a long moment before lowering your hand from your face. “Where the hell did you come from, huh, kid?”
Without another thought, Ellie surges forward, throwing her arms around your neck and pulling you to her. She feels you tense at first, but then you relax ever so slightly, hugging her back.
Joel wheezes suddenly, making you jump apart, and you scramble over to him, laying two fingers against his neck and setting your other palm on his chest. Ellie watches as you pull the blanket back, lift his shirt to inspect his wound. The look on your face gives it away, and Ellie bites back her fear.
Pulling all the fabric back into place, you sink back next to Ellie, your shoulders pressed together. “He needs meds. Stuff we don’t have, and I have no clue where to start looking. We stripped this place top to bottom, and I have no fucking idea where we are.”
There are fresh tears on your cheeks as you speak, and Ellie reaches for your hand. “We’ll be okay,” she says, trying to make her voice sound more confident than she feels. “It’ll all be okay.”
For a moment, you stare back at her like she’s got three heads or something, but then you shake your head. “How do you know?” you ask, but your voice is different, stronger.
“I don’t,” she replies, truthfully. “But it made you stop crying.”
You actually scoff out a laugh, squeezing your fingers around hers.
+
The next day, the hunger gets the better of you. You’d finished the last of what Tommy had given you your second night in the basement, though the final small chunk of a granola bar was stashed in your coat pocket for Joel. You still had some water, but supply is running low, and you know enough to know that snow melt isn’t an option, and you sure as hell can’t build a fire in the basement. If you built one outside, it’d only draw attention.
You have to find something to help Joel. He’s got a fever now, his skin clammy and pale, and it only makes you more worried than you already are. Fevers mean infection, you remember Deanna telling you. It’s the body's way of fending off the bacteria, but you know that in Joel’s condition, it might very well kill him.
The rest of the house is decidedly empty. You’re sure you’ve been through every broken cupboard in the kitchen, turned over every piece of furniture in every room. Nothing remotely helpful.
You’re coming back down the basement stairs, finding Ellie leaning over Joel, dabbing his lips with what remains of your water. He wheezes a breath, head lolling on the mattress, and Ellie shoots you a worried look as your boots hit the concrete. “He looked thirsty,” she tells you, and you just nod.
This is probably a shitty idea, you think to yourself as you cross the room, reaching for the rifle leaned against the wall beside your bags. Ellie’s eyes follow you, boring holes into your back as you sling the gun over your shoulder.
“What are you…?”
“I’m gonna go look in the house next door, see what I can find,” you tell her, your voice tight as you reach into your pocket and produce your pistol. “You stay down here, and you don’t come out unless I tell you, you hear me?”
“And if you don’t come back?” she asks bluntly, and it shoots a chill down your spine.
“You wait till morning, and if I’m not back, then you take one of the horses and leave. You know how to point yourself north — you do that, then turn right around and go south.”
The words settle between you, Ellie staring you down as she processes what you’ve said. This is a risk, you know, but you don’t have a choice. You’re both starving. Joel can’t get better on a few drops of water. You need to do something.
Before she can reply, you step back toward the stairs and head back up, closing the basement door behind you.
It’s bitterly cold, the air snaking right down your throat and making your lungs constrict. You bury your face in your collar, ducking through the door out the side of the garage after briefly checking on the horses. You try to look out toward the road as you cross the small gap between the houses, but all you see is white, the snow having covered your tracks leading into the garage.
The wind howls as you slink between the houses, rattling doorknobs until one gives way. You step inside, glad to find it just as cold as the outside. Any sign of warmth would mean trouble — people. You sling the rifle from your shoulder anyway, lifting it as you sweep through the house. Your fingers shake on the trigger, and you lay your steps carefully, pulling back when a stair or floorboard creaks. Your jaw aches, teeth clenched hard as you make your way through.
It’s just as empty as the rest of them.
You should know better, you realize. Hasn’t this been your job for the last twenty years of your life? Finding anything of value in this picked-over world, anything that might keep someone alive a little longer, might stop them from going hungry or bring some semblance of joy back into their life. Haven’t you been doing this long enough to know?
A place like this, the suburban ghost town you’re hiding out in, is the type of place you would have hit first when things first went to shit, big houses filled to burst with anything and everything, their occupants carted off by FEDRA or otherwise, maybe tried to make a break for it themselves. But you weren’t the only one with that line of thinking — these places had been emptied long ago, and you’re being stupid, putting yourself in the line of fire, however indirect it may be. You don’t know what’s lurking around the corner, what’s—
You stop short, leaning against the kitchen counter of the second house you’ve swept through. The backyards are all connected, fences long toppled, and you darted out of the first house the moment you realized how empty it was. But here..
The crack in the floorboard seems to wink at you as you stare down at it, and it makes your brow arch. You crouch down slowly, gripping the counter for support, your knees barking at the cold ground biting through your jeans. The board gives easily, a definite hiding spot, and a can of peaches sits beneath, tucked into the corner of the hiding place. The label long is faded, and the expiry date is probably older than Ellie, but you don’t care.
You dart back out into the cold, the wind whistling through the trees, snaking down your throat and fisting your lungs. But you don’t care. You move quickly, heading back through the door on the side of the garage, tears sparking in your eyes as you clutch the can to your chest. Ellie’s head snaps up as you stampede down the stairs, nearly collapsing onto the cushions beside where she’s sitting, thrusting the can toward her.
“What—?” she starts, eyes going wide when she sees what you’ve handed her. “Peaches.”
“Peaches,” you repeat, pulling Joel’s knife from where you’d tucked it beneath your jacket. It takes a bit of manoeuvring, using the tip of the knife to puncture the can all the way around, tapping the hilt with the heel of your hand. Ellie just watches, fingers pressed to her mouth, and you’re both holding your breath, praying to God that the inside of the can doesn’t make your stomach roil.
But you flip the top up, revealing the contents, and a giddy laugh slips off your tongue. Shiny, pale orange fruit, with thick, clear syrup nearly to the top of the can. You yank off your gloves, immediately fishing a piece out, not caring how it drips down your fingers as you bring it to your mouth and bite.
Sweet.
It tastes like summertime, like warmth and sunshine and happiness. Your mind faintly recalls your mother’s peach cobbler, a family recipe, served with vanilla ice cream on a hot day.
Your chest warms as you swallow, the first real bit of food you’ve had for days settling in your stomach, the sweetness slicking down the marrow of your bones. You watch Ellie follow suit, tossing her gloves to the side before taking her own piece and the awe on her face as she takes her first bite makes you laugh out loud.
“Joel,” she says suddenly, and you just nod, cupping your half-eaten piece in your hand as you move over to the mattress.
He rouses easily, but he’s barely awake, his brow furrowed with pain, face leaned into your palm when you ask him to open your eyes. He’s given up on telling you to leave, at least. It takes a lot of coaxing to get him to swallow the small piece of peach, but you get there, brushing your fingers through his hair, ignoring the pit in your stomach at how hot his forehead is, his hair coiled with sweat.
It’s not enough, you know. It won’t fix him, won’t make anything better. But for now, for this very moment, you let your heart settle.
I’m currently reading strawberry wine, and just wrapped ch1 and wanted to let you know I’m kicking my feet with enjoyment already.
You’re writing feels so natural, and when I saw you had a linked tumblr I was SO excited. I literally made a tumblr so I could follow all my favorite ao3 writers.
So THANK YOU KINDLY!!!
hello howdy sweet nonnie!
I'll be 1000000000% honest I haven't been on tumblr in a HOT SECOND
but
a more regular return is on my horizon, my life has finally settled down, and I've been working on Strawberry Wine a lot more lately! I hope you enjoy the WILD RIDE that is the first....thirty four parts
kay's making a comeback people, you heard it here first (don't quote me though cuz we all know what happens with that LOL
